Workshops are nice, but sharing an instructor with 8 or 10 others and not knowing what you want to do is not as useful when you're a newbee as it is when you are middling and can appreciate the expertise being shared. You remember it forever, -the tree you had in your hot little hands and destroyed it. The most important feedback of course is the negative, -you do something that absolutely ruins the stock and say to yourself, 'Well, I'm not going to do that again.' Screwing up nice stock, something I have personally done many times is painful, especially in retrospect. Seeds and tiny volunteers, et al are fine to grow, but there's no serious feedback unless and until a person has something that can be made into a 'bonsai', no matter how crude.

I have come to the conclusion that all beginners should only or mostly start with nursery stock. Much, much more fun that just trimming a tree. A good challenge to see what one can create. In another year or two you could change your mind and pot it high without much downside risk.Īnyway, my bottom line is that this is the sort of stuff that I find to be lots of fun. If it doesn't work out, the results could be regrettable, so I think the best strategy is to make the roots be as nice as you can arrange them coming from the trunk, the pot it properly. If this works out, the root fusion will look a lot like basal flare of the trunk. On the other hand, most pine species will fuse closely spaced roots above ground. The nebari that I see in the pic really sucks, so you might set the stage for this being prettier by rearranging them when you repot. Maybe it goes into a pond basket right after I've wired it or maybe wait until next spring. Then my focus will remain on keeping it growing vigorously as this will lead to back budding and thickening. I'll just note that If it doesn't wind up being something that floats my boat, everything above that first branch could be just a sacrifice. So, late this summer or early fall, I would wrap the trunk with some nice copper wire (that is about 1/3rd its diameter thick) and bend the trunk into some curvy trajectory and positioning the top foliage mass so it won't shade anything. You do have a lanky low branch that might be useful/important, but I hate to hang my hat on one-way or bust. Your material, Warm Canuck, is a nice blank slate to find out what you can do. Walter Pall has one that makes me go 'ga-ga' every time I see it. Valavanis that is now Bjorn's, if I am not mistaken. And, last but not least, I've seen a few good Scots pine bonsai, most notably one by William N. I have also noted that it readily back buds (good) and has a moderate needle length (good). It is commonly used as a root stock for more exotic pine varieties. On the flip side of I don't really care about Scots one way or the other as I haven't come across Scots pine material that interested me.